Greek migration minister Thanos Plevris unveiled new legislation on July 10 that would effectively forbid those seeking asylum in Greece after a dangerous journey through the Mediterranean from Africa. Plevris stated in an interview that “Greece will not tolerate the uncontrolled entry of thousands of irregular migrants from North Africa.” Human rights organizations immediately called for the new legislation in Greece to be removed. The Greek Bar Associations’ plenary made it clear that denying asylum is a violation of EU and international law.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also outlined a “ground-breaking agreement” with France on the same day that would “send a clear message that these life-threatening journeys are pointless,” according to him. All political parties have expressed reservations about the UK-France agreement. Organizations like Doctors Without Borders referred to it as “reckless,” “ill-fated,” and “dangerous,” while the Migrants’ Rights Network made it clear that the new agreement will not stop people from entering the UK.
The reason for Greece’s and the UK’s recent migration reduction plans to fail is that migration deterrence does not work.
The European Union was confronted with a crisis a decade ago that it did not anticipate and for which it had not prepared in the summer of 2015. Taus of people scoured the European Union for safety and security as a result of the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Syria’s brutal civil war, and instability in Afghanistan. The so-called refugee crisis in the EU was sparked by the “long summer of migration.” The European Agenda for Migration, which had been put forth in May 2015, had not yet been tested, despite the EU’s lack of a clear plan.
The story of a crisis continues to influence migration policy across Europe today. Since 2015, restrictive deterrence measures in Greece have been used to justify them, making new crackdowns unlikely to occur. Migration is a blemish in the Greek government’s economic success story. It is used to bolster far-right sentiment in the UK. In both cases, immigration policies are developed to thwart arrivals and satisfy domestic political demands.
The spread of the far right across the continent should not be taken as an isolated event from neither migration plan. Both nations have used far-right rhetoric to justify inhumane policies in both countries. The Minister of Migration has repeatedly cited a dubious narrative of an “invasion” from Africa as the justification for Greece’s new policy. The Greek border, and consequently the European border, must be strengthened in order for the country’s minister of migration to allow only “real refugees” to enjoy European protection. Small boats should not enter the country because, according to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, they “undermine] the country’s] border security.”
Although each migration plan is the result of a number of political processes in Greece, the EU, and the UK, their writing style and justifications are similar in many ways. They use similar terms to describe the border and the migrant. The border is perceived as a threat to the border in each state, and protection is needed there. The term “illegal migrant” has gained traction among government officials because of the criminal nature of the migrant who enters each nation. In turn, people who attempt to cross the border are seen as using it as a means of defense. These strategies contribute to a divisional narrative that is “us versus them.” Migrants are reduced to their migrant identity, treated as a whole, and no longer account for their individual experiences. In this way, migrants are perceived as desirable or undesirable by the Western nation-state as being worthy or unworthy of international protection. Only those deemed to be “real refugees” qualify for protection from the international community. The border expels the “undesirables” who are turned into nothing. In the process, a crisis is manufactured and a story of fear is promoted.
Although the events at the European border later came to be known as a “refugee crisis,” they were actually a European border crisis.
The European border regime strengthened more than ever during the border crisis, and the EU’s neoliberal fantasy of a world without borders collapsed. The continent saw the emergence of new border technologies to deter and expel the “undesirables,” and normalization of pushbacks, human rights violations, and violence. Death is still permeating the borders of the European continent. Although the EU-Turkiye agreement in 2016 may have been hailed as groundbreaking, it opened the door to such “swap” policies. These agreements are ineffective. The EU-Turkiye agreement may have slowed down the flow of people across the Aegean Sea in the near future, but it did not stop them. Instead, it altered existing migration routes, created new ones, and increased the complexity and risk of migration.
Their failure is largely due to the fact that human movement cannot be controlled. It can be prevented or delayed, but it can’t be stopped, it is argued.
These policies intentionally aim to cause division because they have a racism in them. Their main goals are to separate people from Westerners and decide who should be expelled from Western society and who is deserving of a safe existence. They should not be taken out of context with the colonial and capitalist pasts of the UK and the EU. The border’s spectacle is fully staged at the same time: it creates the illusion of control over a manufactured crisis that cannot be truly controlled. In reality, the purpose of migration deterrence is to persuade people that it is necessary rather than to succeed.
Source: Aljazeera
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